The Pools, by E. Lockhart

October 15, 2026 / October 15, 2026 by Nancy C. Hanger | Leave a comment

The Pools is a story of transformation, young love (which is transformation in itself), and letting go. It’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve read in years.

The author has often written young adult and even children’s books, but this is a book for all ages, even though the primary character is a young adult girl in high school. 

The small town has pools: hot springs, if you will. But these are different. They are of differing temperatures, even cool pools, and the real “heart” of the town. Townspeople of all ages come to the pools in the morning to swim or soak, during the day to sit by them for lunch, and in the evening to have barbecues, swim, soak, just … be with and in the pools.

It’s not like a spa — people from elsewhere sometimes come to the pools, but it’s not a tourist attraction. It’s local: it’s the focus point of the small town itself.

Then one day, one of the youngest of the children disappears. Her mother thought she’d gone to school, but she doesn’t come home. The school says she never arrived. Groups look for her: she’s not anywhere to be found. But her sister finds her. It’s definitely her younger sister: she knows this in the deepest part of her soul and, well, it looks like her.

In the closet, in a nest of blankets, is a sparrow.

And it’s her sister.

Then more children start turning into birds. The pools are closed: no one is allowed to go there, even if they wanted to—everyone’s scared of them now. There’s an air of fear, but also wonder in the town. Some of the transformations are adults, but primarily children, starting with the youngest first.

You can always tell who they used to be: the bully boys of the school turn into a murder of crows, who hassle people from the trees now.

The birds don’t lose their human qualities immediately: her sister is definitely her sister, who is uninterested in leaving the bedroom they share. Her boyfriend turns into a swan and ends up staying with her due to the rumors, then fear, in the community that “swans are dangerous.” He’s still his loving, gentle self.

I won’t say more — enough of the plot is already given away. Suffice it to say, it’s a gloriously written book for all ages, and I dare say it’s really written for adults and YA. Why? Because adults and YA will understand the theme of transformation better than children. 

Also, the author is a poet, and poetry runs throughout the book in playful usage of some easily recognizable ways and some rather fanciful poetic themes I never even learned in grad school. She has a great epilogue explaining each chapter’s use of poetic constructions and why she used which kinds where. 

Read the epilogue, then re-read the book: you will get so much more out of it.

And then there’s the cover: in all my time in mainstream book production (copyediting, proofreading, typesetting, design, and even as a production manager for an imprint), I’ve never seen the use of a technique they used for the cover for The Pools: it has the look and texture of drops of water. Glorious!

Highly recommended. We’re going to stock this book for as long as possible; I see this becoming a Never Out book for us.